Labour conference will this afternoon vote on three different motions on its Brexit position. There are two – one from the NEC, and one from delegates – which endorse the leadership’s plan to put this decision off until after the next general election, and then to hold a special one-day conference to decide instead. Then there’s an unambiguously pro-Remain motion. It’s going to be tight.
Those around Jeremy Corbyn are anxious that conference doesn’t back the Remain stance, seeing it not just as a debate about policy, but as a move that could seriously undermine the Labour leader’s own position. Len McCluskey has just spoken to the conference hall, ostensibly about a motion on something else, but used the majority of his time to urge the party to vote for the leadership’s position. He appealed to members’ happy memories of Corbyn’s election four years ago, and referred in his slightly menacing way to the hard fight with ‘those without and those within our party who reject that vision’.
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